Yesterday, I got through after a 30 minute hold time and talked to the IRS about my issue where a 2020 1040 I e-filed 20-Apr-2021 from TurboTax shows as not filed.
I learned a few things:
1) If your return gets diverted to a department for errors/corrections, the department that shows return status at IRS.GOV will show the return as not filed and any transcript will also show the return as not filed
2) The errors/corrections department says their timeframe is 10 weeks, but in my case they did not receive the return until a month after I electronically filed which is when they start the 10 week clock.
3) If they miss the 10 weeks, these days they will just say they are working through a historic backlog.
4) MOST INTERESTING - whether or not you have a refund coming, you can check status using the IRS "Where is my refund" function on the website or app (for no refund enter $1 as the refund amount) and it will at least confirm the IRS has your return and is working on it without having to go through the time suck of calling the IRS. This won't tell you and ETA, but based on the previous point there is no useful ETA so nothing lost, and at least you have the peace of mind to know the IRS has your return.
Errors/corrections could be anything, a discrepancy between your return and the W2/1099/etc the IRS has directly, a calculation error, etc. If they eventually find an issue you will get a letter indicating the correction and next actions if any, if not then your return will just finally show as processed and then you can get a transcript.
It's entirely frustrating that IRS.GOV and the transcript show "not filed" instead of "processing" or "checking for error" as a status, but that is apparently where things stand.
